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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Ok. Tis the season for so much more than ornaments. Like overflowing thankfulness to our Lord for life and breath and salvation and family and too many things to even name. But in the crafting realm, for me, tis the season for the annual making-of-the-ornaments for each one of my kids. As in, I'm making them each an ornament. For the first time. So, I guess it's not really "annual" until I do it next year as well.

Whatever. A tradition has to start somewhere.

Speaking of . . .

My mom would have to enlighten me as to when this began, but I have a nice gallon sized Ziploc baggie's worth of mommy-made handmade ornaments. It's not time to trim a tree in our house yet, but when it is I can share more fully as the ornaments are in storage down in our tiny basement. My mom is a needle-worker. She's been cross-stitching for as long as I can remember and she's ridiculously good at it. Like the backs of her projects rival the fronts kind of good. She taught me how to cross-stitch when I was young. I wouldn't say that I was bad at it per se, but I lacked the focus and attention to complete most of the projects that I started. Kinda sad really.

Where do all those half-finished (or . . . er . . . quarter-finished) projects go? Is there a craft graveyard? Maybe there should be. Let those guys rest in peace, I say.

But I digress. My mom started making ornaments once upon a time each year for both of my sisters and me. They have always been treasured, but now that I have kids and sew more, I appreciate even more the tenderness and love that goes into making keepsakes for my babies. While I work on my own kids' ornaments this year, I'll be thinking of my own mama and how much I know she loves me. I'm getting all teary-eyed even thinking about thinking about it. For real. I love my mom.

I'm starting simple this year. Jojoebi of A Bit of This and a Bit of That (one of my favorite inspirational Montessori style blogs) supplied the sweet pattern for the official First Annual kids' ornaments. She lives in Japan and sells actual kits for making these, but since I've got the supplies already in my stash, she was sweet enough to just sell me the pattern. So cute! You can see the kits for the Snow Child Ornament in her Etsy shop. She's also got the pattern for them available now in PDF format for the first time (thanks to me - ha ha) on her website.